Returning images from functions, bad idea?

[redi3]

Hey, I'm wondering if this is a bad idea, I have my reservations that the images will not get destroyed correctly

	function draw(){
	$image = imagecreate(200, 200);

//[...] draw rectanlges and stuff to image

return $image;	
}

function send($image){
	header("Content-type: image/png");
	imagepng($image);
	imagedestroy($image);
	exit;
}

$img = draw();
send($img);

Will everything work the way I'm expected it to? I know it returns the resource id of the image but I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.